they were adopted, or should have been? Like they’re aliens in their own family? That’s what it was like for me. When I was in school, I had a class on psychology and one of the projects we did was working on our own family tree. That got me started, and I kept digging. Not because I intended to prove that there was a bastard line somewhere up the tree, but, I guess in hopes that I’d find at least one ancestor I identified with personally. Just to feel connected in some way, to know more about who I was and where I came from.”
“I can understand that. But that trust fund would help a lot of people, and it’s yours, regardless of how you feel, so why not—”
“I tried to talk to Lionel about my feelings, which was pretty foolish, looking back. I went to Aunt Trudy first, though, and she encouraged me to talk to him. I should have known better. And that’s when I realized that there really was something to my concerns. It was clear I’d struck a nerve, and he all but shoved me out of the conversation. As I said earlier, I can be stubborn. And, unless he was going to confide the truth in me, about my heritage—all our heritage—then I wasn’t going to touch anything that came from it. I know it sounds high and mighty, and it’s really not. It’s more—”
“You being a stubborn idiot?”
He laughed, which surprised him. But she made it easy to see things with a bit more perspective. “I’m sure it looks that way. And, I probably am, a little. But it was a choice I made. To live on my own terms. Not Hamilton terms, and that meant not living on Hamilton money.”
“And you’ve still never found out the whole truth.”
“No. And it’s not like something that colors my every waking moment. I have moved on with my life. But, yes, it is something I want to know, need to know, at some point. I hope to have a family some day, and I want to know what legacy it is I’m passing down, skeletons and all. I don’t want any child of mine to question where he or she came from, or why they might not feel the same as I do about things.”
“Why do you think the proof you need is here? Wouldn’t Lionel keep important family documentation like that at the family estate in town?”
“Trudy was the matriarch of the Hamilton family, and, in that arena, she took great pride in the caring and maintaining of the history we’ve accumulated, both in physical artifacts and written history. She had all the certificates—birth, death—from generations back, along with journals and Bibles.”
“And you think that’s the missing link for you?”
“Yes.”
“Did you get to see any of it while she was alive?”
“I was just starting to dig when she first got sick. She was sick a very long time, and spent most of her time here. She loved this place, and Lionel had most of her things and anything dear to her, moved here. He’s never changed that since her death.”
“How long was she sick?”
“A little over two years. And when I had the chance to see her, I didn’t want to bother her with everything I was thinking or feeling. We all knew she wasn’t going to get better, she knew it, too. So we enjoyed our time together.”
“Any regrets about that?”
He stopped poking at the fire and looked over his shoulder at her. She’d perched herself on the edge of the bed, with the flashlight dangling in her hands, which were pressed between her knees. “No,” he said, never more sincere. “None.” He replaced the poker in the wrought iron stand, and pushed to his feet, turning to face her. “Lionel and I don’t see things the same way, and though I haven’t exactly been banished or anything, we don’t exactly enjoy each other’s company. So he politely invites me to family functions, and I politely decline, and we coexist with little adversity.”
“Like you did with your folks.”
“Sort of runs in the family, it seems, yes.”
“Until now.”
He stepped closer. “Until I heard he was going overseas for two weeks and giving his staff some seasonal time off. Usually he rattles around up here alone, just him and the dogs and that damn parrot, as he calls him. Cicero was one of Trudy’s…eccentricities. She loved that bird. And Lionel loved Trudy, so he put up